INDY LIGHTS: Urrutia dominant in Mid-Ohio win

Santiago Urrutia was in a league of his own Saturday, getting the jump at the green flag and pulling out to about a 10-car length that he never relinquished. He led by as much as 8.8 seconds on the way to a win at the Cooper Tires Indy Lights GP of Mid-Ohio. It was a Schmidt Peterson Motorsports with Curb-Agajanian 1-2 finish as Andre Negrao finished second.

“I was so happy to win today. I really like this track," said Urrutia, who picked up his third victory of the season. "I won and finished third here in two Pro Mazda races and that really helped me in the championship. The first thing I said when I got out of the car was ‘I have to win again tomorrow.'"

Urrutia cemented his authority by extending his lead on all but one of his first 13 trips around the 2.258-mile race track. His advantage had grown to 4.4 seconds by that stage, and when Negrao responded by resetting the fastest lap of the race, Urrutia merely upped his tempo even more. He reset fastest race lap four more times before the finish to ensure a maximum point score of 33 for the day, extending his lead to over 8.6 seconds before cruising home to the checkered flag with a 6.4947-second margin of victory.

"I just worked on my pace, which was really good," he said. "I’m really happy for what we did today but I’ve won three races this year and I’m still second in the championship, so I have to keep winning. I made mistakes early in the season so I have to be consistent now and win races. The series is so competitive and everyone wants to win – especially the Mazda scholarship – so now I will focus on tomorrow."

Dean Stoneman, who along with Negrao moved up when Felix Serrales locked up his brakes in the early laps, finished third. Serrales hounded Stoneman in the battle for third for most of the race, but he couldn't capitalize and finished fourth. Zach Veach, who started seventh, rounded out the top five.

Urrutia, the defending Pro Mazda champion, tightened the points race and now trails leader Ed Jones by just six points. He earned his first pole of 2016 earlier in the day with a lap of 1m10.943s, 0.7925 seconds clear of Serrales. The laps set a new Indy Lights track record lap of 1:10.9428, more than a half-second faster than Jack Harvey’s mark set in 2015.

"I saw that Jones was fifth, so I came into this race 24 points back and now I’m only six points back," Urrutia said. "If you watched the race, it would look like an easy race for me but it wasn’t at all – it’s so easy to make a mistake when you’re out in front by yourself."

In addition, Stoneman was credited Saturday with an additional seven points from Race 2 of the Toronto event, so he trails Jones by 24 points. Four races now remain this season, including one more Sunday, starting at 12:25 p.m. EDT.